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More Glass Houses

            Differing weights and differing measures— the Lord detests them both. (Proverbs 20:10)

            Once upon a time, one of the ways merchants and traders sometimes cheated by keeping more than one set of weights. They used the light weight so they didn’t have to pay as much for something, and a heavy weight to convince the people buying from them that they were getting all they paid for. Have you checked how much deodorant is actually in the huge container you take off the grocery store shelf? Have you noticed how far you have to move the internal base before it even starts to ooze through the holes? Have you seen the Facebook videos in which someone pours a small coffee into a medium cup, and then the same medium cup into a large cup, and fills the cup every time? Is the video a scam, or is the coffee vendor scamming you?

            Dare we talk about society and the people who protest when “the other side” does anything, but applaud when their own side does it? Or about the people who express their hatred as they condemn those who don’t love unconditionally. Or about those who condemn “religious” people for believing in something they can’t sense, measure, or subject to repeated experimentation, but accept as obvious evolution that they can’t sense, measure, or subject to repeated experimentation at anything but the least convincing levels.

            Dare we turn the spotlights on ourselves, and our tendencies to grade ourselves on a curve, but other people by the strictest scale possible? Or our reverse tendency to demand absolute perfection from ourselves but let everyone else slide? Have I missed stepping on your toes? Feel free to step on them yourself as I’ve stepped on my own. Not only do we all judge ourselves and others by different standards, but we’re very likely do so when we accuse others of it.

          What makes all this even harder is that these aren’t necessarily conscious failings on our part. We may not notice, but (once again) we live in glass houses. Other people notice. So when we notice their failings or our own, it’s worth talking to God about them rather than our neighbors.

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